Swim Avis 

My son has been going to St Ambrose in Hale Barnes for over a year and having moved him to another company this week can honestly say I don’t think he has progressed in that time.

1. He has had over 10 different teachers in one year giving him no consistency.

2. They cordon the pool off info different areas and he has been in the same tiny area the whole time. He can easily swim a full width but only gets to swim for 2ish meters at a time due to the way they section the pool off.

3. We have not received any progress updates and had to ask them to assess him because we felt like he wasn’t making any progress. We were then told that he should be moving up to the next class in a couple of weeks. That was 6 months ago and nothing has changed.

4. Their customer service is shocking. They regularly cancel lessons last minute even within an hour of it starting. Often the cancellation is because there is a school event. Why they can’t give better notice is beyond me.

5. The worst bit is if they cancel a lesson you have to ask for a refund…!!!!

Don’t even give it a go

This company is dreadful at customer service. If they cancel a lesson you have to ask for a refund and stalling tactics and delays are very accomplished. In addition if you have any issues then you can ring no one and the email responses are poor and slow. It’s a bit embarrassing it’s owned by what are supposed to be UK icons and pillars of the community and UK sport. The children progress very slow at swimming and are held back if the classes above are not empty. Shameful for Rebecca Adlington and Chris Hoy I think. Still waiting for a refund or anything and my daughter has a serious fracture in her back. Could really do with some customer service training. All about the money.

Having started at Puddle ducks my son was flying however we couldn't make the days for the next group so swapped to Swim! Terrible mistake in over a year no progress all he was taught was kicking his legs and a doggy paddle with his arms in a small section of the pool. I've wasted a year. Now moved to Batley swim and tennis centre and already in lesson one he's been taught breaststroke legs and so much more swimming in a larger pool. The teachers are on the side whereas in Swim in the pool so you can't see the demos. Wish I had changed sooner. I'm gutted and so disappointed with this company. If your child is a natural swimmer they will fly through the groups. But if they need help with teaching points you won't get it here as there is no personalisation at all.

To be fair, the teachers are ok. They're mostly collage-age teenagers who are trying their best. There are 6-8 kids in a class, which often means the nervous or naughty children distract the teacher so much the rest of the children spend most of their time just bobbing round in the water.
The real problem is the company itself, they are impossible to get through to on the phone and response to email is patchy. The company is set up in a way to extract as much money as possible from parents who just want their kids to be safe in the water.
If a lesson is cancelled by them (which they frequently are) you don't automatically get a refund, you have to fill in a form to apply for it. They don't actually tell you this, it took me two emails to get hold of the form to request a refund. Then, when I did fill it in, they then emailed me several more times to confirm the information I'd filled in on the form, including an email to ask me what my email address is (??). If this goes beyond 30 days, you don't get the refund because you've missed the deadline
If you want to leave, you have to give 30 days' notice from the next direct debit, so if you time it wrong, it ends up as 8 more weeks you're tied in. If you cancel the direct debit, they cancel all classes, even the ones you've paid for.
Oh, and the changing rooms and toilets are filthy.

The lessons are more expensive than you'd pay at a local leisure centre, but the service is absolutely dreadful. I only wish I had left sooner.

Don't answer emails, don't update progress, constant changes in teachers and impossible targets, 400 metres for 9-10 year olds is excessive, would be impossible to complete all levels

Level of incompetence of the front desk is appaling! At first , they struggled to put down correct details down when signing up , then direct debit issues because yet again they are not capable of putting the details down correctly. THEY DONT ANSWER THE PHONE ! LEFT ME VOICEMAIL ON THURSDAY LAST WEEK, I RANG BACK , LEFT VOICEMAIL NO CALL BACK MADE.

Massive chaos in changing rooms. Extremely badly organised it is actually embarassing. It's filthy.
30 minutes lesson for £50 and there is not much attention paid to childrens skills, they play more than they teach them . Extremely small area to swim for children to learn to swim. They moved my daughter up twice within 3 weeks and said she needs a new hat . Surprise , surprise no new hat available for the last 3 weeks but the " teacher" said she needs to get one from the front desk. Honestly what a joke!

Given how bad this place is I can honestly say This place should not operate as it does not teach children anything and you are wasting time and money .

Stay away unless you have time and money to waste as your child wont learn to swim there.

I sent an email stating that I wanted to cancel my sons membership at Swim, I was instructed to fill out a cancellation form online, so I did that and still didn't hear anything back after a month. So I decided to cancel the direct debit but I opted to cancel it after the next payment so that my son could still go for the next month. So my direct debit came out of my bank and then will have cancelled after that. I got an email saying they had cancelled all of my sons classes on the day that he was supposed to be going, even though I had just paid for the month!! They said it states this in the terms and conditions but as we had been going for the last few years I'm not sure how I was expected to remember this and also if the communication from their admim side had been better we would not be in this position! I am absolutely disgusted with this company, I will be telling everybody I know not to use them! Also, the turnover of staff is not great! My son would just start getting used to one teacher and then they would change to somebody else. So I think this says a lot about them too. Go somewhere cheaper like your local swimming baths, these are a rip off and a disgrace!

Teachers were pleasant and the staff were professional and the facilities are nice, they are the only redeeming parts.

I ended up almost filing legal action against this company and reporting them to trading standards.

Progress is extremely slow. We ended up completing 6 months of lessons and there was next to no progress in swimming ability, compared with a local leisure centre which has vastly improved my childs swimming ability in the same time arc. In that regard it feels their programs are simply existing to extract as much revenue as possible.
When we cancelled our Direct Debit as we no longer wanted to use their services, they informed my partner they would keep the money and the remaining lessons would not be provided, as it is in their contract.

Therefore, as this is potentially a breach of the consumer rights act 2015 I notified them of this fact and they told me there was nothing they could do. Having investigated the correspondance they sent my partner, I noticed they failed to disclose any trading particulars, contrary to the Chapters 24 and 24 of the Trading Disclosure Regulations 2015. Therefore they breached their own contract as they failed to comply with the laws in Emgland & Wales, so I informed them of the non material damages incurred as a result of their failing.
2 weeks later, I filed a Subject Access Request to find out what they had been saying about me internally, they then processed this from a company not even registered with the ICO, again on a emiail not disclosing trading particulars.
I also included in my complaint, the details of all the unlawfully deployed tracking technology on my web browser installed via their website, without my consent and without providing me with any information as to what data they collect. They also failed to have any form of cookie policy on their website.

In total I successfully claimed £1000GBP in non material damages, by way of mutual settlement and would suggest to anyone who has had to deal with this utter shambles of a company to protect their own consumer and privacy rights.

The more serious concern, is how can a company be trusted with highly sensitive data, when they cannot even get the very basics correct. I genuinely hope more people do take action against JD Sports, which is the parent company of Swim!

Don’t bother! So many negative things to say that I don’t know where to start. They change teachers without prior notice, never update progress and the latest they have ripped me off by taking my money and then when I gave 30 days notice they just cancelled the lessons I’ve paid for! Avoid!!!

I have two daughters who I signed up to Swim with - my eldest I am satisfied with the classes mainly because she enjoys it but there’s a serious lack of organisation.

My youngest I signed up recently due to the offer that was running went in the pool with her and was basically left to swim around the pool with her there was no structure no learning and most importantly no teaching!

I have tried to cancel my membership for my youngest since the start of December I have emailed, lodged messages on their system emailed the site directly and I’m still awaiting a simple cancellation when I was within the 14 day cooling of period.

I also recently received a parking ticket from the Chatham car park. You are allowed three hours free parking and I was onsite for 1 hour 8 minutes. I have appealed the ticket and asked SWIM to assist with getting it cancelled. They have advised they can not assist.

So they can’t cancel my youngest daughters swim lessons when I am within my rights to do so and they can not assist in getting a parking ticket cancelled for their own parking facilities.

The customer service is non existent and the communication is dire I wouldn’t recommend this company to my worst enemy.

I will be reporting them to trading standards - avoid this company with a barge pole!

Complete theft. Had them remove my daughter off a swim level to move up to the next level, no other lessons where available for 6 weeks then continue to charge you even if they have no available lesson and also when you log into it says no upcoming lesson and apparently you are ment to just shown up for a lesson you are not booked into. I was also told that thier system will not update this information and you are basically just ment to know all this. Avoid like the plague

There is no actual teaching going on in these classes. The kids just play games. There’s no support to progress their swimming skills.

The administrative side is abismal. You can only email them and the staff are rude and unhelpful.

The terms and conditions are designed to cheat you out of money. For example, if a class is cancelled by the company you aren’t automatically refunded. You have to request a refund and if you don’t it within 28 days they don’t pay you back. If you cancel your direct debit you cannot attend any further classes that month even though you’ve already paid for them.

I’m shocked that Rebecca Adlington has put her name to this because I’m sure she’d be upset if she knew this was happening.

Like everyone else. Finding it impossible to cancel and the company are taking money out when my child no longer goes there as the pool is freezing. They use your card and not direct debit Which is convenient for them. Impossible to speak to anyone or get an email response. What a scam. Avoid like the plague. Just simply awful.

Both of my children attend swim at chatham and have done since it opened. The swim teachers are lovely and the children have fun.

However the admin side is horrendous. Unless you have a huge amount of time spare to chase money for cancelled lessons I would go somewhere else. Lessons are not automatically refunded when cancelled by the centre. So far it's over £50 since we started (about a months worth). Lessons were cancelled this week and so far it's taken 3 emails to get a refund (that we still don't have) because head office have no record of the lesson being cancelled.

I wouldn't want my name associated with the company, so it's surprising Rebecca Addlington does. The company acts like a scam company when coming to finances.

My daughter has been in level 6 and her current instructor is off due to medical reasons, which is not the centre or the person fault at all. Hope she gets better soon.
But we have had a cover teacher called Iyana she has been amazing and very supportive to my daughter she gave her little tips on arms/hands. Which she took on board and due to the continuous of the cover of the lesson my daughter has now moved up to stage 7. Just want to say thank you for giving up your time for stage 6 and the support you have given my daughter over the last month.

Review for Swim! Chatham

I was deeply disappointed with our experience at Swim! Chatham. I enrolled my three-year-old son in his first swimming lesson here, encouraged by the website’s promise to prioritize building children’s confidence. Unfortunately, this was not our experience.

My son, who has confidence issues and had never been in a pool setting before, was visibly anxious. I requested to accompany him briefly in the pool to help him settle before the lesson, understanding that parents aren’t allowed in the pool during sessions but hoping for some flexibility given his nervousness. Instead, the receptionist dismissively told me, “he’ll probably be ok” and smirked, which felt unkind and dismissive of my concerns.

Adding to my worry was the pool depth: at 120 cm, it’s significantly deeper than my son’s 100 cm height. Given these factors, I felt so uneasy about his well-being that I decided to leave without starting the lesson.

Overall, my experience did not align with Swim! Chatham’s advertised focus on supporting children’s confidence, and I hope they consider more flexible, understanding policies for first-time swimmers.

Don’t waste your money, grandson been with swim Batley for 18 months had a great experience with Kian the teacher, but when my grandson started school days and times had to change, he was then in s group of 4 children squashed into s small space within the pool to allow another 4 classes in the same time in the pool, we had a different teacher nearly every week, spending more time with the more capable children in the class, actually swam 10 minutes out of the 30 minutes of the lesson, no progress had been recorded from February 2024 to October 2024. The centre has got worse it is lead by children teaching children. AVOID at all costs !!

Is this company a scam hiding in plain sight and ruining children's swimming lessons in different towns? Cannot get hold of anyone, nobody replies to emails and you get fobbed off when asking the instructors. I'm not sure the pool owners could have vetted this company properly. Avoid avoid avoid!

Shocking!
I don't write many bad reviews, but this company is to be avoided. It's purely a money making set up.
We tried it for 2 months after they took over lessons at my son's pool. The lessons are now chaotic, with 6 non-swimmers per teacher in a 1/8th square of the pool. No lifeguard.
The kids are excessively floatied; my son who has been in lessons for a year and previously was learning with just a noodle and some time each lesson with no floats is now made to wear 2 arm disks on each arm and a noodle all lesson.
They go though a set routine of exercises each week with no differentiation between the kids. They have a lot of time hilding on to the side waiting. My son is bored just messes around for a lot of the lesson.

The booking system is also frustrating and we have had numerous issues with it, leading to us being charged more than initially stated.

In my opinion you would get better value simple taking you kids to a pool than having these 'lessons'.

I will add that on having no reply to my request to cancel I cancelled my direct debit which I didn't realise meant they get to keep my month's payment and provide no further lesson, good old small print! I've never met a company do closs to a scam and still be legal.

We are not continuing.

It’s almost impossible to communicate with anyone. No body phones us back and barely a reply from emails.

Our son turned up for his regular class to be told there was no space left. They sat him out and I watched for 5 minutes as the classes went on and he was just left sitting there.

I found a staff member who said his class was full and he joined a different class.

For 4 weeks I’ve been emailing and phoning. We still have no resolution. I’ve asked for a refund as they continued to take money and of course I haven’t taken him back not knowing whether there’s a class for him.

The worst service